At the corner of Clairmount and 12th Street, a bloody Sunday began in the middle of the night. It was July 23, 1967. The year of Carl Yastrzemski's triple-crown. The year that a festering fire between Detroit's police and its black population was set ablaze.

As the 12th Street riots split apart an inner city neighborhood, the Tigers split a double-header with the Yankees. In the second game, Detroit won 7-3. Willie Horton, the left fielder hitting cleanup, clubbed a home run. Then the team told Horton and his teammates to do what he'd already done: go home. Stay safe.

Instead, Horton drove to 12th street. He stood atop a car. He pleaded for peace. He saw the flames, the broken bottles and buildings. With tears in his eyes, the man who grew up in the nearby Jeffries Projects asked angry looters to not lose their purpose. To not destroy what little community and infrastructure they had.

The scene may sound familiar. In Baltimore, riots rage. The death of Freddie Gray (caused by a spinal chord injury that occurred during his arrest), fueled protest, then unrest, then violence. Monday's events led to the postponement of an Orioles game. The continued discord will lead to a baseball game played to an empty Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Inside, hits will echo across blank bleachers. Outside, the hits will echo across the country. Even in Detroit, they're watching.

From his home in the suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Horton sees the harrowing images coming from Baltimore. "It's like a flashback," he told Sporting News Tueday.

Horton says he did not know, at the time, what drove him to drive to 12th Street. Now he says it was God. If so, God sent Horton to the scene in full uniform, the word Detroit stitched across his chest, split apart but kept together by buttons. But Horton witnessed that city torn asunder.

"It looked like a World War," Horton said on Tuesday. "I'd never experienced anything like that."

Horton realizes that the Tigers did not want him out there. But the Appalachian-born child, the youngest of 21 children, said he was raised to help people. So he tried. Yet even in the midst of such madness, the people in the streets of Detroit had the same message for Horton as his team: "Go home, Willie."

"People were worried and concerned about me being hurt while I was trying to bring peace," said Horton. "I saw hope there. A story to be told.

"But I told them this wasn't the way to do it. Don't loot. Don't destroy your neighborhood. This is your neighborhood. Your schools."

It's a message that Horton would still send to Baltimore. Horton, who works in baseball operations for the Tigers, remains active in the Detroit community as a philanthropist and advocate for its young people. He fears that youth in Baltimore will fall into similar traps he saw in Detroit. That, caught up in the moment and susceptible to anger, they'll sacrifice long-term rewards for revenge.

"I try to tell the people, sit back and think about what you're doing," Horton said. "Especially young people right now. Don't cheat yourself. God gave you a million dollar mind."

Instead, in times like these, Horton preaches patience.

"It took a while for things to get here, I believe, in life," he said. "It will take a while to get rid of it."

But Horton also recognizes that with riots and protests, even one as damaging as Detroit's in 1967, there is a past and a future to consider. He stresses that the seeds of anger growing in Baltimore's streets were planted long ago, just as they were in Detroit when the inner city black population felt bullied by the metro police and their 'Big Four' squad cars. It goes beyond race, he says. It's about opportunity, fair treatment and fear. And he stresses that beyond the blaze, brighter days may be ahead.

They were for him.

"It's the best thing that ever happened to me," Horton said. "It took me beyond the field and got me into the community. I'm still there."

And brighter days followed in Detroit. "I think it brought us together as a whole as the people, black and white, said we got to get together and work this out," said Horton. "Things are done for a purpose. [After the riots,] we had a better city, a better community. What I see right now is scary. But things will work themselves out."

That coming together often took place at Tiger Stadium. The next season, Horton, Hall-of-Famer Al Kaline and the Tigers made a World Series run. Horton remembers seeing, in the stands, a blend of black and white not always present in outside society. They had a common goal. And together, they won. The run was improbable; down 3-1 in the 1968 World Series, the Tigers won the last three games over the Cardinals. Horton, who hit a home run and scored six times in the Series, felt the discord in Detroit and the championship weren't so disconnected.

"God put us here to help heal the city," he said. "That's how we went out and performed. We brought everyone together. It gave us incentive and we just kept winning."

Baltimore's players, he said, are not required to carry such a burden. They owe nothing to the city struggling beyond the boundaries of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. But, be it God or good will, something compelled Horton to protect the city he wore on his chest in 1967.